THE MAHATMA AND THE HARE

THE MAHATMA
A DREAM STORY

“Ultimately a good hare was found which took the field at . . . There thehounds pressed her, and on the hunt arriving at the edge of the cliff the harecould be seen crossing the beach and going right out to sea. A boat wasprocured, and the master and some others rowed out to her just as she drowned,and, bringing the body in, gave it to the hounds. A hare swimming out to sea isa sight not often witnessed.”—Local paper, January1911.
    “. . . A long check occurred in the latter part of this hunt, thehare having laid up in a hedgerow, from which she was at last evicted by acrack of the whip. Her next place of refuge was a horse-pond, which she triedto swim, but got stuck in the ice midway, and was sinking, when the huntsmanwent in after her. It was a novel sight to see huntsman and hare being liftedover a wall out of the pond, the eager pack waiting for their prey behind thewall.”—Local paper, February 1911.

The author supposes that the first of the above extracts must have impressedhim. At any rate, on the night after the reading of it, just as he went tosleep, or on the following morning just as he awoke, he cannot tell which,there came to him the title and the outlines of this fantasy, including thecommand with which it ends. With a particular clearness did he seem to see thepicture of the Great White Road, “straight as the way of the Spirit, andbroad as the breast of Death,” and of the little Hare travelling towardsthe awful Gates.

Like the Mahatma of this fable, he expresses no opinion as to the merits of thecontroversy between the Red-faced Man and the Hare that, without search on hisown part, presented itself to his mind in so odd a fashion. It is one on whichanybody interested in such matters can form an individual judgment.

THE MAHATMA^[1]

[1]Mahatma, “great-souled.” “One of a class of persons withpreter-natural powers, imagined to exist in India andThibet.”—New English Dictionary.

Everyone has seen a hare, either crouched or running in the fields, or hangingdead in a poulterer’s shop, or lastly pathetic, even dreadful-looking andin this form almost indistinguishable from a skinned cat, on the domestictable. But not many people have met a Mahatma, at least to their knowledge. Notmany people know even who or what a Mahatma is. The majority of those whochance to have heard the title are apt to confuse it with another, that of MadHatter.

This is even done of malice prepense (especial

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